View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Andrews University [This paper has been reformulated from old files without formatting, but maintains the original pagination—despite the resulting odd page breaks.] Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 8/1–2 (1997): 120-136. Article copyright © 1997 by Norman R. Gulley. The Christian Coalition and the End Game1 Norman R. Gulley School of Religion Southern Adventist University In America, bastion of religious liberty, forces are at work to tear down the wall of separation between church and state. There is a relentless attack against the first amendment of the Constitution, and leading the fight is the Christian Coalition. According to the historicist reading favored by Adventist interpreters, prophecy tells us that America will exercise “all the authority of the first beast” (Papacy) and will make “the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast” (Rev 13:12, NIV).In fact, America will set up an image of the Papacy. The Pa- pacy is a union of church and state, so the image in America will be a union of church and state (Rev 13:13-14). When church and state unite in America, then the church will use the government to enforce its agenda, for the issue in Reve- lation 13 is worship (vss. 4, 8, 12, 15). Whoever refuses to engage in the man- dated false worship will be threatened by boycott and death (vss. 15-17). Purpose of the Constitution and the First Amendment In their book, The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Cor- rectness,2 Isaak Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore demonstrate that the Consti- tution is a secular document, even though Christians took part in producing it. The framers of the Constitution believed religion to be a personal matter be- tween the believer and God; church matters were not for government. Church and state were to be two separate powers, one to serve the spiritual and the other the secular needs of citizens. The First Amendment is a two way street, in which the government must not meddle in Religion, and Religion must not meddle in governing. A wall of separation kept them apart. History had proven the wis- dom of this separation of powers. The framers of the 120 GANE: APOCALYPSE NOT YET Constitution knew the necessary limits of both church and state to safeguard religious liberty, so often lost in countries where they merged. Liberty article, “Our Godless Constitution,” Kramnick and Moore note the Constitutional framers, building on good English political theory derived from John Locke, limited government “to protect people’s rights to life, liberty, and property, not to tell them how and when to pray.” Nowhere in the Constitution is Christianity or even God mentioned. No prayers for guidance were offered dur- ing the Constitutional Convention. Although the founding fathers were mostly believers in God, “they did not want a godless America, just a godless Constitu- tion.”3 However, the framers of the Constitution did not have “a radical secular agenda for the nation.”4 Obviously, they were only interested in separating church and state, which is anathema to the Christian Coalition. Attacks on the First Amendment The First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Here are two important principles: the Establishment clause and the Free Exercise clause. The government must stay out of the sphere of religion, which also means that relig- ion should not force government to legislate in matters of faith and con- science.The Christian Coalition supports candidates for government who will promote their religious agenda. They have considerable influence in the Repub- lican party and hope to get the Republican President of their choice elected in the year 2000. The Berlin wall came crashing down in Germany. Forces are working to tear down the wall of separation between church and state in America. As Rob Boston observes, Christian Coalition critics “insist that destruction of the wall of separation between church and state remains a key goal of Robertson and the Coalition.” In October 1981, “Robertson’s ‘700 Club’ aired what amounted to a week-long attack on the separation of church and state.”5, 6 Robertson wants His Christian Coalition to rule. He once said, “We have enough votes to run the country . And when people say, ‘We’ve had enough,’ we’re going to take over.”7 He sees no problem with the church ruling the state, governing the peo- ple. It’s as if the First Amendment had never been written. It’s as if he had am- nesia about other church-state regimes that inflicted religious bigotry and intol- erance on dissenting minorities. “In 1992 the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group founded by Robertson, printed an article titled “TEAR DOWN THIS 121 JOURNAL OF THE ADVENTIST THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY WALL!” in its Law & Justice newsletter. The article, written by ACLJ director, Keith Fournier, compared the wall of separation between church and state to the Berlin Wall and demanded that it be demolished. Fournier insisted that religious liberty in the United States, ‘has been hampered by this fictitious wall that was never intended by the founding fathers and one which militates against the First Amendment.’ In the same newsletter, Robertson raged against the “so-called ‘wall of separation’ between church and state.”8 The New Christian Right is out to Christianize America. Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, challenged, “Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country.”9 There’s no biblical duty about Christianizing America. But there is a warning about the result of uniting church with state (Rev 13:11-17).In commenting on the Coali- tion’s “Contract with the American Family,” Sandy Alexander stated, the Chris- tian Coalition aims to “abolish the long-held Constitutional doctrine of separat- ing church and state.”10 In speaking about the “many religious conservatives” who “would like to junk” church-state separation, American Business Review republished a Chicago Tribune editorial stating “Church and state stand best apart.”11 “Not true!” thunders the Coalition. Church and state were never supposed to be apart.“Indeed,” they say, “America was a Christian nation,” a fact that James Madison denied, and he was one of the principle designers of the Consti- tution.12 Furthermore, the Federalist papers, written by James Madison, Alex- ander Hamilton, and John Gray right after the Constitutional convention, are the most authoritative commentary on the Constitution. This series of eighty-five letters were published under the pseudonym Publius in the New York newspa- per, and, as Clifford Goldstein concludes, “are almost as secular as the Constitu- tion itself. They never once use the name ‘Jesus Christ’ or ‘Christian.’ The word Christianity appears once, in Federalist #19, in this context: ‘In the early states of Christianity, Germany was occupied by seven distinct nations.’ A handful of references to ‘Providence’ (#2), ‘heaven’ (#20), and ‘the Almighty’ (#37) show that the authors believed in God, not that they were establishing a Christian republic. The most telling refutation of the Christian nation idea was in Federalist #69, written by Hamilton.” Comparing the President with the king of England he said, “The one has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction; the other is the supreme head and governor of the national church.”13 The contrast couldn’t be greater. The British monarch is head of the secular state and the national church of England, thus imaging the Papacy to the extent that the Pope resides over the Vatican state and 122 GANE: APOCALYPSE NOT YET the Catholic church. It is precisely this image to the beast, this union of church and state, and its resultant legislation, that Scripture warns about in Revelation 13, and which the Christian Coalition seems to be on a fast tract to fulfill. Not persuaded by the facts about the Constitution, its First Amendment, and the Federalist papers, the Christian Coalition says, “the words ‘Wall of separa- tion’ do not appear in the Constitution or in the First Amendment, they are just a bad metaphor from a quick letter penned by President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut. Hear the facts. The twenty-six churches forming the Danbury Baptist Association were a religious minority who longed for religious liberty in a state where Congregationalism was the established religion. It was out of this context that they congratulated the Presi- dent as he came to the Presidency, for they knew his stand on religious lib- erty.”14 Thomas Jefferson’s January 1, 1802, letter to the Danbury Association said, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I con- template with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of sepa- ration between church and state.”15 These words spoke to the lack of liberty suf- fered by the Danbury Association because of an established religion, and also represent the real intent of the First Amendment. The Danbury Association were discriminated against by a church, not by the state. The Separating Wall was intended to work both ways. The Christian Coalition sees the state as interfering with religion when Christian prayer is not a part of the public school experience, or Bible reading is not in the public school curriculum, or Christian religious symbols are excluded from secular government property.